re: #105 Dark_Falcon

The problem is that we didn’t have THAAD back then. Which means if Pakistan fired its nukes, at least some of them would connect.

But far more basic to the decision making process was the baseline assumption that Pakistan had been an ally and could be made one again, while Iran was seen as a dangerous enemy. Those attitudes were not unique to Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld, but rather were the default assumptions of the foreign policy community. And that then clarifies the reason I don’t like the “go after Pakistan after 9/11” alternate history:

For that alternate history to work, it would have required such a large shift in thinking by so many people as to make its likelihood vanishingly small.

Even with our latest and greatest toy, we have to work from the presumption that some will connect. With any nuclear power, some warheads will get through.

My worst nightmare at the top of the “Reagan will kill us all” 80’s? A frieghter pulls into LA or SF. In it’s hold is a 10 Megaton device. Around it is however many tons of sand that the ship can hold. Lots and lots of silicon.

See, radioactive isotopes of Silicon have a fairly short half life. That means the energy is kicked out _fast_. Radioactive silicon is very hot. A ship full would make anything west of the Sierra Nevadas look like the moon. Not even the fucking roaches would survive that…